Snooping on the Neighbor
The moon is Earth’s nearest celestial neighbor. It’s the brightest object in the night sky and has profoundly influenced the course of human civilization. For early humans, the moon provided lighting for hunting and defined when crops should be planted and harvested. Markings of lunar phases appear in cave paintings in France and defined the arrangement of Stonehenge.
A few facts about our neighbor:
- At the moon’s closest distance, it would take 135 days to drive there in a car going 70 mph.
- The moon has almost the same surface areas as the continent of Africa.
- Our moon is inching away from Earth at a rate of 1.5 inches per year. (Was it something we said?)
- The lunar maria or “seas” were formed by ancient lunar volcanic activity.
- Because there’s no air on the moon, sound can’t travel above the surface — so if a tree fell on the moon, it wouldn’t make a peep. How the tree got there would be another story…
